Microsoft System Center Essentials 2007 Privacy Statement
At Microsoft, we're working hard to protect your privacy, while delivering products that bring you the performance, power and convenience you desire in your personal computing. This privacy statement explains many of the data collection and use practices of Microsoft System Center Essentials. This privacy statement focuses on features that communicate with the Internet and is not intended to be an exhaustive list. It does not apply to other online or offline Microsoft sites, products or services.
Collection and Use of your Personal Information
When we need information that personally identifies you or allows us to contact you, we will explicitly ask you for it. The personal information we collect from you will be used by Microsoft and its controlled subsidiaries and affiliates to provide the service(s) or carry out the transaction(s) you have requested or authorized, and may also be used to request additional information on feedback that you provide about the product or service that you are using; to provide critical updates and notifications regarding the software; to improve the product or service, for example bug and survey form inquiries, or to provide you with advance notice of events or to tell you about new product releases.
Except as described in this statement, personal information you provide will not be transferred to third parties without your consent. We occasionally hire other companies to provide limited services on our behalf, such as performing statistical analysis of our services. We will only provide those companies the personal information they need to deliver the service, and they are prohibited from using that information for any other purpose.
Information that is collected by or sent to Microsoft may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which Microsoft or its affiliates, subsidiaries or agents maintain facilities, and by using a Microsoft site or service, you consent to any such transfer of information outside of your country. Microsoft abides by the safe harbor framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of data from the European Union. Microsoft may disclose personal information about you if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on Microsoft or the site; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of Microsoft (including enforcing our agreements), or (c) act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of Microsoft employees, users of Microsoft products or services, or members of the public.
Collection and Use of Information about Your Computer
Essentials contains Internet enabled features that can collect certain standard information from your computer ("standard computer information") along with information needed for a specific feature and send it to Microsoft. Standard computer information includes information such as your IP address, operating system version, a code that identifies the manufacturer of your computer, and your regional and language settings. This computer information is generally not personally identifiable.
Security of Your Information
Microsoft is committed to protecting the security of your personal information. We use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. For example, we store the information you provide on computer servers with limited access that are located in controlled facilities.
Changes to the Privacy Statement
We may occasionally update this privacy statement. When we do, we will revise the "last updated" date at the top of the privacy statement. We encourage you to periodically review this privacy statement to be informed of how Microsoft is protecting your information.
For More Information
Microsoft welcomes your comments regarding this privacy statement. If you believe that Microsoft has not adhered to this privacy statement, please contact us by e-mail at MOMpriv@microsoft.com.
Operations Manager Privacy
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399
Specific Features:
The following features describe the functionality and controls in Essentials:
Customer Experience Improvement Program and Microsoft Update Improvement Program
What This Feature Does: If you choose to participate, the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) feature will collect information about how all users of the Essentials Console use Essentials 2007 or Essentials 2010 so that we can identify trends and usage patterns. The Microsoft Update Improvement Program (MUIP) collects information about your network and your update installation experiences, which is sent to Microsoft Update at the end of each successful synchronization. The information collected by CEIP and MUIP helps improve the quality, reliability, and performance of Microsoft software and services.
Information Collected, Processed, or Transmitted: The information CEIP collects includes software and hardware performance, as well as basic software and hardware configuration such as RAM, processor type, and screen resolution. We do not collect names, addresses or other contact information. For more information about CEIP, see the Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program.
The information MUIP collects includes the number of servers and clients in the hierarchy of your Update Services network, as well as installation success and failure counts per update. For more details on what information is collected and how it is used, see the Microsoft Windows Server Update Services Privacy Statement at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=86377.
Use of Information: The information collected is used to help improve Microsoft's products and services. Microsoft employees, contractors and vendors who have a business need to use the data are provided access as necessary.
Choice/Control: When you install the Essentials Management Server, during setup you'll be asked whether you would like to participate in CEIP and MUIP. There are separate controls for turning CEIP and MUIP on or off after setup.
To turn CEIP on or off later:
1. | Start Essentials 2007 Console, and in the Navigation Pane select Administration |
2. | In the Administration View space under Device Management, select Settings |
3. | In the Settings View under Type: General double-click on Privacy to launch the Global Management Group Setting-Privacy property page. |
4. | Select the CEIP tab |
5. |
To turn CEIP off, select I don’t want to join this program at this time |
6. | Click OK. |
To turn MUIP on or off later, use the Windows Server Update Services Administration User Interface, select Options and update your Microsoft Update Improvement Program options.
Important Information: The Essentials administrator or other administrator with sufficient privileges may construct Group Policy to opt in or out of CEIP by setting a registry-based policy. The relevant registry key and settings are as follows:
Key = HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\SQMClient\SCOM
RegEntry name = CEIPEnable
Entry type REG_DWORD (Hexadecimal):
0 is off
1 is onOperational Data Reporting
What This Feature Does: Operational Data Reports summarize how Essentials 2007 is being used in your management group. If you consent to sending operational data reports to Microsoft, each week, SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services reports will be generated from the operational data in your Essentials Reporting database and sent to Microsoft.
Information Collected, Processed, or Transmitted: Operational Data Reports are XML files with data about your system configuration and the Microsoft-authored management packs that you are using. The reports include information about the operational environment of a management group, such as the number of agents controlled by Essentials, the most common alerts, and which management packs you are running.
Sample Operational Data Reports can be viewed at the Operations Manager web site along with descriptions of the data collected. If you have consented to sending these reports, you may view the reports that will be sent to Microsoft by navigating to the %windir%\temp\OpsMgr Operational Data Reports folder on your Essentials Server.
You can also view your Management Group, Management Pack, and Most Common Alerts Operational Data Reports by going to the Essentials Console and in the Reporting View running these reports in the Microsoft ODR Report Library folder.
Use of Information: Microsoft uses the data in Operational Data Reports to better understand how the Essentials product works as deployed in customers' environments. These reports will help improve future software and services.
Choice/Control: When installing the Essentials 2007 Management Server, you'll be asked whether you would like to send Operations Data Reports to Microsoft.
To turn Operational Data Reporting on or off after install:
1. | Start the Essentials 2007 Console, in the Navigation Pane select Administration |
2. | In the Administration View under Device Management select Settings |
3. | In the Settings View under Type: General select and right click Privacy and choose Properties from the context menu |
4. | Select the Operational Data Reports tab |
5. | To turn Operational Data Reports off, select No, don’t send operational data reports to Microsoft |
6. | To turn Operational Data Reports on, select Yes, send operational data reports to Microsoft (recommended) |
7. | Click OK. |
Important Information: Operational Data Reporting cannot be configured using Group Policy.
Essentials Error Reporting
What This Feature Does: Essentials Error Reporting asks users to send error report data to Microsoft via the Internet. This feature allows you to report problems you may be having with the Essentials Management Server and Agents components.
Please note that this feature does not control error reporting for other Essentials components such as Essentials Console. The Essentials Operations Database and Reporting Database error reporting behavior is defined by what settings SQL Server 2005 is using.
Choice/Control: When you install the Essentials Management Server, you'll be asked whether you would like to send Essentials Error Reports to Microsoft. You can choose automatic reporting in which case reports will be sent without prompting you. Alternatively, you can choose to be prompted for approval each time an error report is generated, which lets you review the information in a report before it is sent.
To turn Essentials Error Reporting on or off for the agents:
1. | Start the Operations Console, in the Navigation Pane select “Administration” |
2. | In the Administration View space under Device Management select “Settings” |
3. | In the Settings View under General select and right click “Privacy” and choose “Properties” from the context menu |
4. | Select the Error Reporting tab. |
5. | To turn Essentials 2007 Error Reporting off, click “Don’t generate error reports” |
6. | To turn Essentials 2007 Error Reporting on and automatically send error reports, click “Automatically send error reports about this product to Microsoft without prompting the user (recommended)” |
7. | To turn Essentials 2007 Error Reporting on and queue error reports, click “Prompt the user for approval before sending error reports to Microsoft” Click OK. |
8. | Navigate back to the Administration space |
9. | In navigation tree on the left hand side, click the Agent Managed view which can be found under Device Management node |
10. | Select one or more agents in the middle result pane |
11. | Right click on the agent and choose Repair option in the context menu |
12. | If your Management Server Action Account does not have the right permissions on the agents, in the Repair Agents dialog box, choose the Other user account option, and type in the credentials of an account that has access to the agents |
13. | Click the Repair button. |
14. | Click the Close button when completed |
To turn Essentials 2007 Error Reporting on or off for the Management Server:
1. | Log onto the Essentials 2007 Management Server. |
2. | Select Start option from the Windows menu choose “Run” |
3. | In the Run dialogue type “regedit” and click OK Navigate to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HealthService\Parameters\ |
4. | Choose the “Error Reports Enabled” DWORD value and double click and set the value data 1 to turn on Error Reporting or 0 to turn off Error Reporting |
5. | Optionally, if you have enabled Error Reporting but would like to queue error reports before sending to Microsoft you can set “Queue Error Reports” DWORD value and set to value data to 1 which will queue error reports to prompt for approval or 0 to directly send error reports to Microsoft. |
6. | Click OK once complete and the change will take effect |
Important Information: Error Reporting for the Essentials 2007 Management Server and Agents cannot be configured using Group Policy.
Agentless Exception Monitoring (AEM) Error Forwarding
What This Feature Does: Essentials can be configured to centrally collect error reports generated due to application and operating system problems from all the computers in an enterprise running Windows operating systems and managed by Essentials. This feature is called Error Monitoring. Essentials 2007 can also be configured to forward the centrally collected error reports to the Microsoft Error Reporting service. This feature is called Error Forwarding.
Information Collected, Processed, or Transmitted: The forwarded error reports can be either in Basic or Detailed format. In Basic format, the error report forwarded contains only the signature of the error used to uniquely identify an error without specific information about the environment in which it was generated. In Detailed format, the error report can consist of a detailed memory dump, registry settings, results of a Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) query, and additional files along with the error signature from the computer on which the error report was generated.
Reports might unintentionally contain personal information, but this information is not used to identify or contact you or your organization. For example, a report that contains a snapshot of memory might include a name, part of a document the user was working on, or data the user recently submitted to a website
Choice/Control: During the process of configuring product features, you can specify the policy for Error Forwarding.
1. | Start Essentials 2007 Console, in a the Navigation Pane select “Administration” |
2. | In the Administration View space Overview page click “Configure Product Features”. |
3. | On the Configure Error Forwarding page, check the “Automatically forward all collected errors to Microsoft.” option to enable Error Forwarding to Microsoft. You can select between Basic and Detailed error reports. |
4. | If you do not want to enable Error Forwarding to Microsoft, leave the option unchecked. |
5. | Complete the wizard and click Configure. |
To enable or disable Error Forwarding after enabling it:
1. | Start Essentials 2007 Console, and in the Navigation Pane select “Administration” |
2. | In the Administration View space Overview page click “Configure Product Features”. |
3. | On the Configure Error Forwarding page, check the “Automatically forward all collected errors to Microsoft.” option to enable Error Forwarding to Microsoft. You can select between Basic and Detailed error reports. |
4. | If you previously enabled Error Forwarding, uncheck the “Automatically forward all collected errors to Microsoft” option to disable it. |
To selectively control the error reports forwarded to Microsoft after Error Forwarding has been enabled:
1. | Start Essentials 2007 Console, in the Navigation Pane select “Administration”. |
2. | In the Administration View space under Settings, select Privacy. Double-click on Privacy to bring up the Properties dialog. |
3. | On the Properties dialog, select the Error Transmission tab. |
4. | On this tab, you can set the filter(s) to exclude error reports forwarded to Microsoft based on User name, Computer name, Application name, Module, and Application Error type. Click on the Filter button to set the exclusion filter criteria. |
5. | If you want to include additional diagnostic data requested by Microsoft from the managed computers in the error reports forwarded to Microsoft, you can check the Upload the diagnostic data collection requests. If this diagnostic data should include files, registry settings, WMI queries and Memory dumps, check the corresponding boxes on the tab. |
6. | After you click OK or Apply, the selected inclusion and exclusion policies defined in the steps above will be applied to the Essentials 2007 Management Server. |
To disable Error Forwarding and Error Monitoring mode:
1. | Start the Essentials 2007 Console, in the Navigation pane, select “Administration” |
2. | In the Administration View space Overview page click “Configure Product Features”. |
3. | On the Configure Error Monitoring page, select the “No, do not collect application errors” radio button. |
4. | Complete the wizard and click Configure. |
For more information on how to further configure AEM please review the Essentials 2007 deployment documentation which can be found in the product documentation folder on the CD image.
Essentials 2010 features only
Microsoft Windows Server Update Services
What this Feature Does: Update Services is a patch and update component of Windows Server that enables information technology administrators to deploy the latest Microsoft product updates to Microsoft Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP operating systems and other Microsoft Products. By using Update Services, you can manage the distribution of updates that are released through Microsoft Update to computers in your network.
Information Collected, Processed, or Transmitted: For more details on what information is collected and how it is used, see the Microsoft Windows Server Update Services Privacy Statement at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=86377